


Good Partners

by hopelessbookgeek



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Dirty Talk, F/M, I don't understand what you do on missions, Somewhat icky discussion of creepy men, Undercover, fake married, lowkey mutual pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-03 03:14:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14559606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopelessbookgeek/pseuds/hopelessbookgeek
Summary: York and Carolina pretend to be a married couple for a short undercover mission, and the marriage might be fake but that doesn't mean it isn't backed by some pretty real feelings.





	Good Partners

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Legendaerie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Legendaerie/gifts).



> Saro's fault as ever! Mind the tags.

“Fuck this,” Carolina said aloud, looking at the outfit she was supposed to wear. This wasn’t her first undercover mission or even her tenth but normally she was allowed to dress herself, and for parties she favored her own turquoise, some sheath of silk with a slit up to her thigh. It wasn’t about what she thought flattered her but she felt better with a thigh holster in easy reach.

Objectively the dress the wanted her to wear was lovely, a deep rich blue thing in frothy layers with sleeves that slipped over her shoulders. But it was also  _ heavy, _ not something she could easily run in or get out of the way, and not for the first time she was annoyed at being bait for the recon team.  _ Subtlety is not your strong suit, _ the Counselor had told her.

_ Everything is my strong suit, _ she’d countered, because the Director wasn’t there to snap at her for arguing about personnel decisions.

_ We believe this is the best place for you and North Dakota. _

Well, at least going on a mission alone with North should be fun. It had been a long time since they were paired together, since he was usually with South. Probably they thought North could keep her in line, whereas she could manhandle someone like Wash into doing things her way. So she’d see about that.

It was a little difficult but she squeezed herself into the dress; she wasn’t massively beefy, although anyone looking would see the muscles in her arms and shoulders, but the boning in the bodice was firmer than she was used to, even in armor.

When she was ready as she was ever gonna be, she looked in the mirror, turned every which way to see how she looked, and was not disappointed. She looked nothing like herself, really, with her neck and shoulders bared, with her hair pinned up in loose curls, with foundation covering the freckles on her nose. “North is gonna die,” she sighed, and then left. They were supposed to meet in the hangar.

Thankfully she didn’t pass anyone on the way. Most of the high-ranking Freelancers were already in position, York and South and Wyoming long since gone, and it wasn’t like Maine was going to make fun of her or anything but honestly as soon as they could jump-start this thing the better.

There was indeed a tall man in the hangar in a beautifully cut suit, and he was facing away from her but instead of North’s gold-blonde he was brunette– he turned towards her and she saw the scar–

_ “York? _ What are you doing here?”

He grinned and held out a hand, and after a moment she stepped forward and took it. “I’m an infiltration specialist. Who better to case a joint?”

“They assigned me with North–”

“Last minute adjustment,” he said in a tone that suggested it was his design. How he talked anyone into that was a secret she needed to learn. “Ready to go?”

“Sure, I guess. North was supposed to tell me the code names, though.”

He led her carefully onto the ship and helped her arrange herself among her pile of skirts so she could strap in. “We’re supposed to pretend to be married, right? So I’ll be Brady Smith and you’ll be Mrs. Smith.”

“Is your real name  _ Brady Smith?” _ He’d already been going by York at Errera, told her it was for the peppermint patty.

He grinned and didn’t answer, strapped himself in beside her as Niner announced they were off. “What’s going to be the given name of my beautiful wife? You do look lovely, by the way.”

“Thank you. I am very uncomfortable dressed like this. Call me…” She wracked her brain for a name that might work, and the first thing that came to mind was an aunt. “Rachel.”

“Rachel,” he repeated. It sounded nice from his mouth. “Rachel Smith, my wife Rachel Smith.”

“Are you sure you can remember to call me your wife all night?” she said with a little teasing smile.

“Are you kidding? By the end of the night  _ you’ll _ be convinced we’re married. Which probably means we need to get a story straight. We’ll say we’ve been married… five years?”

That was probably fair, that was about how long they’d known each other. “We’ve been married five years but how did we meet? What do rich people do? Race horses? Drink champagne?”

“Spend money,” said York. “Auctions? You and I were locked in a bidding war for some… rare book, or something? And I asked you out on the spot, and we were married six months later.”

“A love story for the ages,” she said, and laughed. “Did we have a springtime wedding? Did I wear white?”

“Of course! Of course! Are you kidding? Do you think these fictional rich personas would break with tradition so blatantly? We had a beautiful, lavish Catholic wedding in an old cathedral decorated with orchids, and I gave a lovely toast with fine champagne, and you were a blushing virgin.”

She wasn’t blushing now but York had a very rakish set to his jaw. They slept together the night they met and hadn’t so much as kissed since then, sticking to a ride-or-die sort of friendship instead. She was probably a tiny bit in love with him, but he never brought it up so neither did she. “Please don’t tell the mark anything about my virginity.”

“No worries there. It’s never been a habit of mine to describe my sexual encounters in great detail. That said…” She groaned. “Hey now! We  _ are _ supposed to be married, so it’s expected we’re gonna be affectionate, right? Arm in arm, probably a few dances.”

“What makes you think I know how to dance?”

“Well,  _ I _ know. Follow my lead and you’ll be fine.” He smiled. “That’s true of a lot of things,” she rolled her eyes, “and we’ll almost certainly have to kiss like we are maddeningly in love.”

She kept her eyes on him, eyebrows arched. “I definitely don’t know how to do that.”

His smile grew just a little. “That one’s easy too,” he said. “Just follow my lead.” He cupped her cheek and leaned in before she could move, and the brush of his mouth on hers was so soft and smooth that her eyes slipped closed and her lips parted. They’d kissed when they hooked up but that was years ago and anyway they were drunk, it was forceful and used a lot of teeth. She felt this right down to her toes and must have had a dazed expression when he pulled back because he laughed a little.

“Try not to look so shocked when I do that later,” he advised. “Far as these guys know, I’ve been doing that for years.”

“You can keep on doing it for years,” she said without really thinking.

He swallowed hard and looked about to say something but then Niner came over the comm and told them they were on the descent. “Damn,” he said, “I gotta…” He reached into a bag at his feet and pulled out two little tins and a mirror. The first tin held what looked like foundation, only thicker, and he started dabbing it carefully over his scars. “Got this from South. It’ll cover me right up.”

Honestly Carolina liked the scars. She hated what they meant but they added a little gravitas to his pretty-boy face. “What’re you going to do about the eye?”

He didn’t answer right away, concentrating, but when the scars were gone he opened the other tin. “Contact lens. Perfect match for my good eye, should look pretty natural, help me keep my cover.”

Alright, she had to say it. “You’re handsome. How is staying handsome a cover?”

He paused for a few beats, staring at the mirror. “People look at me and just see the defect. Take that away, it’s amazing how unrecognizable I become.” He popped the lens in and blinked a few times, turned the mirror to check it out from different angles. “Besides, you look nearly the same.”

“God, I hope not,” she said, almost offended. He dropped everything back in the bag and looked at her head-on. It was weird, to see symmetrical York again, but it didn’t really change her opinion on his looks. The tuxedo did a lot more of that than the makeup.

“Ah, don’t get self-deprecating on me now. You’re pretty, the only thing the makeup did was get rid of the freckles. And I liked the freckles.”

She had no idea how to respond to that, including to the implication that she, Agent Carolina, who’d been accused of arrogance more times than she could count, would be  _ self-deprecating. _ But she didn’t need to figure it out because the ship was docking and York was getting up. “Rise and shine, D,” he said, and Delta appeared at his shoulder. “Ready to roll?”

_ “Ready when you are, York.” _

***

Delta knew who everyone was, which was good because Carolina mostly didn’t have a clue. Everyone looked strangely identical, she didn’t see anyone under forty; all the men were grey- or white-haired, all the women looked down their noses at her. She knew she didn’t walk with the poise of a woman born to wealth or even the easy loping grace of York, but she didn’t trip or stomp around or anything. It was a little weird to feel the weight of a ring on her finger, but she was supposed to be a wife so she had a gold band matching York’s.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Smith,” said some businessman, shaking York’s hand. “Are you an industry man?”

“Mining,” he said with his charismatic smile. “We produce the purest gold in this quadrant, I can guarantee.”

“Is that so?”

“Oh, yes. If you’ve ever seen raw gold, it’s quite dark, a very rich color. You can see my ring here. No impurities whatsoever.” God, Carolina had to try not to laugh. Their rings were tin painted yellow, dark because of the poor quality of the metal. York usually couldn’t lie for shit but he could bullshit like nobody’s business so she resigned herself to keeping her mouth shut because laughing would absolutely ruin this.

The man inclined his head appreciatively. “I’m surprised we haven’t met before, then. As you can see, my wife is quite the lover of gold.” She was at that. Her ears, fingers, wrists, and neck were all adorned with chains and bands. It hovered between sumptuous and tacky. Mostly Carolina thought it must be heavy.

“Well, I’m quite the workaholic, love to oversee everything personally. You want something done right, you have to oversee it yourself, that’s what my father always said. Besides,” he said, his smile turning the faintest bit roguish, “you see how lovely my wife is in her finery. Every time I think we’ll dress up for a night out, I suddenly become distracted with… other plans.”

The man chuckled and his wife busied himself with fetching another glass of wine from anyone who was not her husband. “Ah, to be young again. Are you newly married?”

“Five years.”

“And might as well be newlyweds! How fortunate for you.” Were political marriages still a thing out here? Carolina couldn’t imagine being married to someone who never looked at her, someone she looked at with contempt.

“The trick,” said York, “is to be the first. Luckily for me, she has no point of comparison. Much easier to convince her I’m a catch!”

The man and York shared a laugh and Carolina felt a burning need for champagne. She wouldn’t risk getting tipsy but already York had broken the  _ one rule _ she set for him and if she was gonna have to listen to this shit all night, she was gonna need some help.

***

“Alright, D,” said York when the supply closet door closed behind them. “Guard duty. Fifteen second warning for anyone approaching.”

_ “Complying.” _

He pulled his datapad from an inside pocket on his jacket and got to work transmitting coordinates and information both to the rest of the team. “We’ll have five minutes after North gives me the signal to get out of here with a reasonable excuse. Anything useful you got from talking to the wives?”

“Ugh, plenty,” said Carolina. “Turns out rich women like nothing better than bitching about their husbands.”

“Did you join in?”

She saw he was grinning and rolled her eyes. “Yeah. I told them I married you for your looks but you’re  _ terrible _ in bed.”

“Hey!”

She laughed and stole the datapad, typed the most pertinent information in shorthand. “There’s a lot more that can go into a report later but I think this is all they’ll need tonight.”

“Alright, just need a few more–”

_ “Warning,”  _ said Delta.  _ “Twenty seconds.” _

York bit his lip. They knew beforehand what excuse they’d use if they were caught in a supply closet and Carolina had readily agreed to pretending she’d been getting a good ride from her would-be husband. But they had to  _ look _ the part too and that was up to York. “You can open the door, don’t let anyone in. Are you wearing anything under the dress?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Because if I was going to make a move on you, I’d tug that bodice down straightaway.” His hands came up to her neckline but he didn’t move. “Trust me?”

Her breath came a little faster. It had been a while since she’d been this close to York out of armor, she could smell sweat and cologne, he was her second in command and she’d trust him with a lot more than undressing her. It was less about  _ trust _ and more about  _ want _ but all things considered he was being very professional about this and she wasn’t gonna trip him up by making any of it real.

“Okay.” He half-unzipped the dress and shoved it down, and a strapless bra was no more revealing than the sports bras she trained in, but it felt different, considerably more intimate. She had to physically hold the dress up and he nodded approval, pulled a few pins out of her hair so that the curls spilled loose.

“You need to be blushing. We were working up a sweat, remember.”

_ God, _ but she wanted to be the one communicating with South while York answered the door with his tie loose and his hair a wreck, but she was already mostly there– “I can’t blush on command, York!”

“Oh, for God’s– c’mere.” He tugged her close and bent down so his breath fanned out against her ear. The intimacy made her shiver. “I wish I were fucking you for real in here,” he murmured low and smoky, and her eyes shot open wide. “Just get under all those skirts, can’t stop thinking about it. I wanna make you scream my name so loud everyone out there hears it, the name you like,  _ York, _ it’ll blow our cover but I won’t even care because I’ll be buried so deep in that tight–”

“Okay! Okay, Jesus.” Her cheeks were  _ scalding, _ she knew they had to be red even under her foundation. There was a gentle rap on the door and York went back to work at the datapad, Delta assisting, so it was up to her to crack the door and distract the waiter on the other side.

His eyes widened when he saw the state of her, her dress slipping and her face red. “Is… everything alright, madam?”

“Yes,” she said, and didn’t have to feign breathlessness. “Oh, yes.”

“Is there anything you… needed? It is a supply closet, after all.”

York groaned in the background and it could easily be frustration but it took on a very different intonation in combination with  _ the state of her. _ “Five more minutes?” she said with a little laugh.

The man looked a little flushed himself. “Please feel free to ask for anything else you might need, madam.” He turned and quickly walked away so Carolina shut the door and tugged her hair back into a messy bun.

“Zip me back up,” she ordered, and he obeyed before going right back to work. “How was that?”

“Good job,” he said, sounded a little out of breath too. “You looked pretty well fucked.”

“Fucked up, more like. You’re such a bastard, York.”

He smiled crookedly but didn’t look at her.

***

The next day they got to sleep in, but they did still have to finish their reports. All her notes were mental and all his were a combination of Delta’s recordings and hastily scribbled shorthand; if they were going to give anything useful to the Director, it needed to be coherent.

They decided to pool their notes and sat in the observation deck overlooking the training floor; there weren’t any matches scheduled that day so it should be nice and quiet. It was nice, actually. They were both in sweatpants and t-shirts drinking shitty mess hall coffee, and York kicked his feet up and Carolina had her hair in a messy ponytail. It was comfortable.

“Do you remember which wife this was?” York asked, holding out a log of the party. Each name had a face attached, thank God, but they still had to match those up to their notes. “Banker’s wife or senator’s wife?”

“Mm, I think she was the captain’s wife, actually… oh! Yeah, absolutely the captain’s wife, because she kept talking about how he was a  _ seaman _ and I was trying so hard not to laugh.”

York laughed with her now. “I’d be the same way. Which one was the one you told I was bad in bed?”

“All of ‘em,” she said, still smiling. “Had to make them trust me.”

“What, did you tell them I have a small dick, or something? I don’t.”

“I know you don’t. Nah, they would’ve thought that was  _ vulgar. _ I said you didn’t have the  _ skill _ and  _ virility _ to please a woman.”

He whistled.  _ “Virility, _ that’s a good one.”

“Thanks. Hey, which one was the– the guy with the purple tie? Looked like a ham?”

York laughed and pointed him out. “This report is gonna look  _ ridiculous.” _

“It really is.” She typed some of her notes on her datapad. “We each writing a separate report, or do we want to combine them?”

“Write up whatever you’ve got and send it to me, I can figure it out from there. Not gonna put that all on you.” He got that quiet inward expression that meant he was listening to Delta and scribbled a few notes, and they didn’t speak for a bit. York was the only person Carolina could be alone together with, and she was rarely sentimental enough to express that to him but it didn’t make it any less true.

And truth be told she was hung up on the night before, on York calling her beautiful a dozen times just within her earshot, on the confident turn of his head, on the heat in the supply closet that had nothing to do with the temperature. It was pretty clear that for York it was part of the job and so she wouldn’t mention it, wouldn’t make a mountain out of anything at all, but it would be a distraction for a while to come.

“Hey,” York said finally, “sorry about what I said in the supply closet, it was kinda… graphic.”

“Just part of the mission,” she said, just a bit short. “I don’t hold it against you.”

“Did you enjoy your evening of wedded bliss?” He was smirking and she rolled her eyes at him.

_ “No. _ All the boring function, none of the sugar.”

“I kissed you! I got half your dress off!”

“Not for  _ fun. _ No, I hope I don’t ever have to reprise my role as Mrs. Brady Smith.” Was that really his name? It would be just like York to backtrack his personal history, just secure enough or just foolish enough to use his birth name as a code name  _ for his code name. _ Endearing, almost, if it didn’t get him in trouble. Terrible name, though. “You looked nice in the tux but I like your eye better like this.”

“What, gone?”

“The scar, I mean. Gives you character.”

He shook his head just a little in some sort of disbelief but didn’t verbally argue with her at least. “I still can’t believe you told all those women I’m bad in bed.”

“Why do you  _ care? _ You won’t ever see them again and they were all, like, forty-five and married.”

“And they were all  _ wickedly _ jealous that I showed up with such a smokin’ twenty-something on my arm.”

“I could crush you with my thighs,” she said, and he laughed.

“I know you could.”

“And you didn’t answer my question. Why do you care?”

He paused, not so much like he was thinking but more like he didn’t want to admit it. “Did you… really think I was bad in bed?”

“Jesus Christ, York.” She set her datapad down and finished her coffee in one swallow; this seemed like the sort of thing she should devote her attention wholly to. “That was years ago, and we were drunk. I wouldn’t have known if it was bad. I didn’t exactly have an extensive frame of reference.”

“Well, you didn’t  _ then.” _

She kept her eyes on him. With his feet kicked up on the counter and his datapad on his lap, he looked like he couldn’t care less, but there was a faraway look to his good eye and she knew it was a legitimate concern.  _ Men. _ “Who, exactly, do you think I’ve been boning down with? Wyoming? Wash?”

“Wash is cute.”

“Wash is gay.”

“An obstacle,” he admitted. “So you really didn’t… after that?”

“Nope,” she said with what she hoped was a carefree shrug. “Been busy.”

“Too busy to get busy.”

“Sure, I guess.” She really could not understand why he  _ cared _ this much. Alright, he was insecure about his own performance, that was still a little sad but at least it was understandable. Why on earth would he care if she’d been having sex or who with? “With the understanding that it was years ago and we were drunk and I have limited points of comparison, no, you weren’t at all bad in bed.”

“Okay,” he said, sounding relieved. “I was very complimentary of you, you know. To all the businessmen and whatnot. Although they were asking some  _ weird _ questions. I could barely follow it, it was like a whole different dialect I didn’t understand. It was wild.”

“What kinda weird questions?”

“Well, like, I’m the youngest and dare I say best looking guy in the room with the youngest and I  _ will _ say prettiest girl on my arm, so they have questions about  _ that.” _

“Guys always want to talk sex.”

“Guilty,” he said with a shrug. “But like, they were wondering what our sex life was like, so I made up some tasteful yet erotic details.”

She fought back a smile. “I literally don’t want to know.”

“And one of ‘em, maybe the banker? He was  _ astounded _ when I said we have sex three or four times a week. He asked how I talked you into it. I said I never had to do much convincing cause I thought, y’know, might as well have fun being a playboy for the night, and instead of assuming I’m just a sex god with a silver tongue– in more ways than one– he just didn’t believe I could possibly manage it. I won’t get into too many details about that because it got really… creepy. But none of them could even imagine a marriage where both parties liked each other, basically.”

Carolina made a face and felt a shiver down her spine. “That’s disgusting. No wonder all their wives hate them.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“Here’s hoping you didn’t contribute to the rest of that conversation.”

He jerked back. “No! God no! I made an excuse to get out of there immediately so I could get some liquor to steel my nerves back up. Thank God they were talking business again when I got back.”

They killed people for a living but trust York to still have the best heart in the room, solid gold to match his armor. “Guess there are a few worse things than being Mrs. Smith if that’s your competition out there.”

“Call me crazy but I like being around people who like being around me.”

“You’re really gonna trip over that low bar.”

“Don’t I know it.” He shook his head and looked back down at his datapad. “Enough of the sex offender talk. We make good partners.”

“We…” Her heart skipped a beat and she refused to consider why. “We what?”

“Good partners,” he said again. “Teammates. For the mission?”

“Oh!”

“What did you think I meant?”

Did he ever think about their night together like she did? Not just as a footnote in their friendship, not as a drunken mistake, not as any other kind of mistake, just as a fun time. If she’d answered his question about wedded bliss with  _ it was fun, we should do it again sometime, _ how would he have taken that? She couldn’t ask, didn’t want to see that look on his face he got when didn’t want to say something that would hurt.

But maybe someday she  _ could _ ask. Maybe someday she’d make a joke about a repeat performance and he’d stay up half the night wondering if she meant being by his side or in his bed. Maybe he’d believe her if she said he was handsome just like he was. Maybe, maybe, none of that would be today.

“Nothing,” she said, and went back to her report.


End file.
